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The U.K. House of Commons will vote Tuesday on the “Tobacco and Vapes Bill” that would make it illegal for anyone born in 2009 or beyond to buy tobacco and add restrictions to vaping. Its passage would amount to an effective lifetime ban on smoking for those under the age of 15.
The bill was backed by Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has referred to tobacco as “the single biggest entirely preventable cause of ill-health, disability, and death.”
While the bill has support from lawmakers from both the opposition Labour and ruling Conservative party, some Tories have broken ranks with Sunak. Former Prime Ministers Liz Truss and Boris Johnson have both opposed the bill, with Johnson describing it as “nuts” and Truss calling it “profoundly unconservative.”
“I think it actually risks making smoking cooler. It certainly risks creating a black market and it also risks creating an unmanageable challenge for the authorities,” Conservative lawmaker Simon Clarke told BBC radio.
Conservative Members of Parliament will be able to freely vote on the bill but it is expected to pass, as it has the backing of Labour.
Health officials say that because of tobacco’s addictive nature, preventing young people from picking up the habit could save millions of lives. “Smoking kills and causes harm at all stages of life from stillbirths, asthma in children, stroke, cancer to heart attacks and dementia,” Public Health Minister Andrea Leadsom said in a statement. “This bill, if passed, will have a substantial impact—preventing disease, disability and premature deaths long into the future.”
Tobacco causes approximately 75,000 preventable deaths per year in the U.K and over 500,000 hospital admissions.
Under the legislation, officers would get new powers to issue fines to shops selling tobacco or vapes to children. The legislation also involves new restrictions on the sale of vapes to make them less appealing to children. One in five children in the U.K. has tried vaping despite it being illegal for under-18s, according to U.K. government data.
Read More: How Juul Hooked Kids and Ignited a Public Health Crisis
If the bill passes, the U.K. will have the world’s only generational smoking ban, and one of the strictest anti-smoking laws. The legislation was inspired by a similar law in New Zealand that passed in December 2022 but was scrapped in February this year after a new government led by the conservative Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was sworn in.
At the time, the New Zealand legislation was the world’s first generational smoking ban.
Smokers in the U.K. cost their government approximately £14.7 billion ($18.3 billion) between health care costs and other social services compared to the £10 billion ($12.5 billion) it collects in tobacco specific taxes, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility.
